Final

Shaun Le Roux def. Eddie Charlton 7-11, 11-6, 11-3, 4-11, 11-3

Fantastic match today to wrap up the 2010 Madison Open. Our two top seeds put on an incredible show of movement and ball control. Shaun Le Roux had previously lost only one set during the tournament and was obviously going in feeling pretty confident. Eddie Charlton had lost two sets to Jaymie Haycocks in a tight semi-final, but was also going in with some confidence.

The first game started with Shaun building up a 7-3 lead before Eddie won 11-7 in one hand. Not only had he come back to win the game, he successfully exposed Shaun's movement more than anyone else had previously. Shaun picked it up the next two games and was looking like he was going to run the table in four games, but Eddie came back in the fourth (with the magic knee-socks) and rolled to an easy 11-4 win.

The last game was all Shaun. Even for the first few points, but at 4-3, Shaun's confidence went up and was able to get to roll to an 11-3 victory. Best squash of the week.

Check out the MSW Facebook page for some photos...

Main Draw, First Round

Great matches last night. Graham vs. Hedrick was epic. 90 minutes of exceptional stuff.

Eddie Charlton def. Lyall Paterson 10-12, 11-2, 7-6 ret.
Kamran Khan def. Fernando Lopez 11-4, 11-9, 11-6
Jaymie Haycocks def. Neil Cordell 11-5, 12-10, 11-4
Wade Johnstone def. Juan Pablo Roude 11-8, 11-7, 11-9
Anthony Graham def. Rex Hedrick 11-7, 4-11, 7-11, 11-7, 11-9 (89min)
Shaun LeRoux def. Aqeel Rehman 11-5, 11-3, 11-7
Karim a.g.a Samy def. Ben Coleman 11-4, 7-11, 12-10, 11-8
Peter Creed def. Jonas Laursen 11-5, 11-5, 11-6

Quarterfinals are tonight!

Wade Johnstone vs. Jaymie Haycocks, 5:00
Kamran Khan vs. Anthony Graham, 6:00
Peter Creed vs. Eddie Charlton, 7:00
Shaun Le Roux vs. Karim a.g.a. Samy, 8:00

See you tonight!

Qualifying Finals

Neil Cordell def. Keith Pritchard 11-0, 11-1, 11-4
Fernando Lopez def. Daniel Sibley 11-7, 5-11, 11-4, 12-10
Anthony Graham def. Saqib Yousaf 11-8, 9-11, 11-7, 13-11
Lyall Paterson def Arshad Iqbal Burki 14-16, 11-9, 11-2, 11-10

Tomorrow the Main Draw. Starts at 5:00pm on two courts. Good stuff.

2010 Madison Open

First Round Qualies in the books. No surprises. Turns out the pros are a LOT better than the local guys. Great fun though for the locals to play with these guys. Tomorrow the tournament begins in earnest.

Wednesday schedule is:

Burki vs. Paterson 6:00pm
Yousaf vs. Graham 6:00pm
Lopez vs. Sibley 7:00pm
Pritchard vs. Cordell 7:00pm

Madison Open Online Registration

Thanks to those nifty folks at 5Nines Data, we've got us an online registration page! Pretty cool, eh?

2010 Madison Open

The second annual Madison Open will take place from Nov. 2-7. Amateurs Nov. 5-7. We'll have online registration as well as snail mail versions available. All should be available by next week.

New Art!

New artwork by Linda Kelen and Jamie Grunniwaldt.

A word about Jamie
I have been a visual artist as long as I can remember, as a child of a painter I considered it a birthright and eagerly took to the paintbrush. In the past I have been preferred people as a subject but have lately been drawn to include the urban and rural landscapes that we humans inhabit. This is undoubtedly a product of my idyllic country childhood meshing with a decade of urban living.

Warm up of the week

As promised on the MSW Facebook page, I'll be sharing some of what I learned at Train to Play this summer. I'll kick it off with some simple things you can do to actually warm up before getting on court. Most of us tend to hold up a wall and pretend to stretch cold muscles. Frankly, without actually moving, you aren't going to prepare your body for what you are going to ask it to do on the squash court.

So, try some of this stuff. Ask me to demonstrate. I don't mind looking a little silly.

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Foreward/backward skips. Travel the width of two courts, and make the trip a couple of times.

Foreward/backward lunge walk. Step the right foot out bend at the knee 90 degrees, don’t hunch your back, keep your left leg as straight as you can. For extra credit, reach across your right foot and touch the floor. Switch legs and repeat.

Foreward/backward Crossover skips. Pretend you are skipping on a line. Cross your leading foot over the line by swiveling your hips.

Foreward/backward crossover lunge walk. Same as the skip--cross your lead foot over the center line, lunge and reach across and touch the floor. As you come up from your lunge, balance on the lead leg.

Side-shuffle with big arm swings: Shuffle laterally and swing your arms up and back. This is really silly looking.

Carioca lunge walk. Cross a leg behind and lunge, Reach across and touch the ground. Balance and cross a leg in front. Reach across and touch the ground.

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Now you'll be sweating before you get on court. Enjoy!

New Artist: UCC Challenge: League Night

I'm very pleased to introduce the new artist: Ann Rutecki. Some of you may know her husband Paul. As you will see, clearly Ann is Paul's better half. ;-) Her oil paintings will be up until some time in August.

In other news, we'll be hosting a team of players from the University Club of Chicago the weekend of July 10/11. Basically, it will work just like the Wednesday League--Many players from beginner to expert. Meet some new players and play as much as you'd like! We'll do some socializing later in the day with the Chicago team. Sunday the 12th will be more squash and then a World Cup Finals party at the club.

More information as the date come closer.

Speaking of League, the Wednesday Night league has resumed, so plan accordingly.

Results!

A great time was had by all at the First Annual WinterFest Tournament. (We might have to come up with a better name for this...) Anyway, we had a small, but enthusiastic group of players including several from Milwaukee and Chicago.

In probably the largest SIZE difference ever to be seen on a squash court, Lara Vojnov (the short) defeated Geoff Garbacz (the very tall) in the 3.5 final. Both Lara's and Geoff's games are improving rapidly and I suspect we'll see them both contesting more matches in the 4.0 division next time.

Speaking of the 4.0 division, Nick Eugenio of Chicago took the 4.0 title from the very game Andrew Bayer of Oconomowoc. Nick, the young Chicagoan is getting back into squash after years of playing high school and college hockey. He's got tremendous fitness and speed and it proved too much for the experienced Bayer.

The 4.5 final was contested by ersatz Madisonian Jeff Hanson and another young Chicago player, Harry Goldstein. Harry did double duty in the 5.0 draw and the 4.5 and spent about 20 hours on court, but it didn't matter in the final here. Just too much speed and fitness for the wily veteran to contend with.

The 5.0 draw was a round robin contested by Sid Singh, Mike West, Harry Goldstein, and yours truly. Sid and I met in the final pairing, with neither of us dropping game previously. In three hard fought games, I came out the winner, making up for my defeat handed to me by Sid the previous weekend.

Next on the calendar will be the Club Championships in April! I'd love to see every club member get involved in this event as we will have 4 full divisions. I'll get that on the calendar soon.

Tournament Time

Hi All,
Tournament Time in Madison. Sign up for the Winterfest tournament, February 19th through 21st. We'll have a 6.0 Invitational Round Robin event. We should had 4 to 6 players in our top draw all playing each other in a round robin. Should be good.

Download the Entry Form here!